(file photo/paNOW)

By Susan McNeil

Council pay

Council creates commission to review own compensation

Apr 28, 2022 | 1:13 PM

The City of Prince Albert will review the money paid to its elected officials for the first time in decades, using an independent commission.

The three-person commission was appointed at Monday’s meeting and will consider things like what elected officials should earn and whether vacations or parental leave should be given.

Councillor and former mayor Don Cody said he has confidence in the people chosen.

“I think we’ve got three individuals here who appear to me to be quite capable, and I think they’ll do the right thing for the community and they’ll do the right thing for the council,” he said.

Former provincial court judge Stan Loewen, Arne Lindberg, a school board trustee and Brenda Mishak, an assistant professor at the University of Saskatchewan have all accepted the job.

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Cody agreed with the staff assessment that council setting its own rate of pay is always a controversial subject.

“I know this issue is going to have some controversy to it, there’s no doubt about that,” he said. “There always is, it’s been that way for the last 50 years.”

The names were chosen in a process that involves the city clerk consulting with the mayor’s office who in turn, consulted with the management committee.

Councillor Tara Lennox-Zepp asked to have the administration’s recommendation amended to include parental leave in the review.

Lennox-Zepp said the City of Saskatoon is also reviewing council remuneration and has included the concept of parental leave for councillors for 18 weeks along with providing funds for childcare of a new baby.

Councillor Ted Zurakowski re-iterated that at this stage, council is asking for a review and no decisions have been made.

The last time Prince Albert modified its council pay structure was in 1988 when they opted to set the rate at a percentage of what is paid to a provincial cabinet minister.

When one increases, the other does automatically.

Right now, the mayor’s indemnity is just over &86,000 per year, which is 57 per cent of what a provincial cabinet minister is paid.

Councillors receive almost $29,000 – about 33 per cent of the mayor’s pay.

However, additional money is paid for things like a dental plan, a per centage of a health care plan, life insurance and private vehicle usage.

Whoever is deputy mayor receives $100 every two weeks for three months and all get a per diem rate of $200 per day or $100 for one-half a day of meetings.

The mayor is given a $650 per month vehicle allowance for travel in the city and councillors get $200. Extra money is paid for travel outside of the city but is paid per kilometre driven.

The mayor also receives a $5,000 travel budget annually and councillors are allocated $3,600 each.

Once the commission has completed its review, council has given itself 30 days to accept, change or reject the recommendations.

Commission members will get an honourarium and the total cost is expected to be about $2,000.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com